I thought idly, “The Disciples must have felt foolish finally stealing away with Jesus’s dead body on Easter morning when he didn’t rise.”

I was alone on the road.

I was half way to New Haven when suddenly my car jolted.

“Holy shit!”

I was baptized in adrenaline as I swerved to the shoulder of the road and I stopped. I stepped out of my car and looked back down the road.

I saw him.

I called to him, “Are you ok?”

He was about thirty years old with long hair and he was holding up a crux with a sign tacked to it.

I trotted towards him, “Are you ok?”

I saw then that his sign stated: “Cruz Fuentes, you must decide.”

I halted. I exclaimed, “How, how… do you know my name?!”

Then I noticed the phone book near his bare feet.

The man spoke.

“You see what you want to believe.”

I asked in disbelief, “Do you have a sign for everyone in the phone book, or something?!”

He answered, “Or something.”

I stared up at his sign and I asked, “What the hell must I decide?!”

He answered, “Exactly. Decide.”

“For godsake, who are you?!”

He answered, “Who do you think I am?”

I stepped back, saying, “Some fucking weirdo!”

I stepped back again, “What do you want?!”

“I want you to decide. The only thing that is truly yours in this life is this choice.”

I stepped back, saying, “I am out of here!”

I strode back to my car. As I opened the door I glanced toward the weirdo. He had turned his back to me.

I got into my car.

As I pulled the door shut I was awakened.

#

I am upside down inside my crumpled car. I am trapped. I struggle to move but I am in agony. I hear people yelling. I smell gasoline. Smoke! I cough bitter tears. I hear fire crackling all around me. I can’t see. I scream in darkness.

Like this:

Rogan had come from the bedroom into the kitchen with his bowling ball bag. He set the bowling ball bag on the breakfast table.

Rogan opened the bowling ball bag and carefully reached inside. He said, “Well, today is Day One at the new job, Brittany.”

Rogan withdrew a woman’s severed head and set it gently on the kitchen table.

“I still love you, Brittany.”

The woman’s head was decomposing and ripe.

“You were so sweet. I miss you.”

Rogan sat down at the breakfast table and leaned intimately toward the astonished head of Brittany.

“You know that I loved you since I first saw you on that tour bus. I was love stricken. I knew somehow that you would be love stricken too.”

Rogan suddenly noticed the flies now orbiting his Brittany.

“Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife!”

Rogan stood up swiftly and took a can of insecticide out of his bowling ball bag. He sprayed his Brittany’s face.

“We were always married in spirit, weren’t we?”

Rogan sat down. He stroked his Brittany’s cheekbone. Then he licked his fingers seductively.

“I didn’t have a purpose until we met. I was faking it. Suddenly I knew I would orbit your star as long as I lived.”

Rogan stood up and began pacing around the breakfast table. He fidgeted with his silk tie.

“Love-of-my-life, I even forgave you when you strayed. I knew you hadn’t lost that lovin’ feelin’. I know how you were frightened by the intensity of our love. You ran but I knew that you could never hide.”

“You reign over me.”

Rogan bent down and kissed the crown of his Brittany’s head. He straightened up and wiped her hairs from his lips.

“I owed that interview to you. I wanted you to have everything you wanted. So I was bold. I was motivated. You are my reason for laughing, for crying, for living, and for dying.”

“Without you I would never have gotten ahead.”

.

.
#
.
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~

Like this:

She stumbles over the edge of a gully and rolls down the steep slope. Her legs are bruised and they bleed but now she is hidden from the moonlight. She tries to listen but her heart is pounding in her ears. A powerful flashlight beam slashes above her and her eyes glisten with tears.

“She’s down in this gully, Son.”

“Careful going down, Dad.”

The two create little landslides of stone and sand with each crunching step. The flicking flashlight is like a serpent’s tongue probing the layers of darkness.

“Dad,…”

“Quiet! I’ll look in those caves. You look around those boulders and bushes.”

They are heading down the gully away from her.

She makes a foolish move.

“What was that?”

The flashlight beam is hurled upon her as she struggles back up the slope. There is a loud crack and suddenly she cannot feel her legs yet she is shuddering as if her legs were kicking.

A blanket woven by his Wife Who Died
Adorns my saddle where he dare
Bestride me slowly with his beaten heart
And turn, as if to cry good-bye

I trot along the Trail My Friend once more
To bear all sorrow down to town
Where we will trade it for a day or so
Of work together dust to dust

The bargain struck by hand to carry goods
Upon my back up there somewhere
Beyond the pass where pumas hide the moon
Machete smiles did slice the price

My hooves the hours mull with dust and salt
That smolder from the pounded ground
The strangers grow impatient with my pace
And tell the Man My Friend to tend
My inclination, weighing on my knees
My coffin bones are spears of tears
The Man My Friend with gentle songs beside
My toil he shares with yet regret

Yet steep between the jaws of canyon walls
The waves of rocks in frozen pose
A shadow dances on my bleary eyes
My legs I lose, so quit and sit
The angry strangers my existence curse
But flying words can bring no wing
So stones are cast that gouge away my fur
I bray to heaven, then cries arise

The Man My Friend between the stones and me
Does intercede and begs my legs
To help me wobble, like a foal again
But he is struck by stones and moans
Collapsing with me back into the dust
The strangers leave us there aware
They take our chances with their own and go
The goods upon their shoulders rolled.

The Man My Friend is moving not at all
But grave injustice I defy
To find myself arisen and I bray
I bellow and I scream extreme
Damnation on the wicked strangers’ path
When one returns despising eyes
And draws his gun and fires amiss at me
I kick at rocks that fly awry
To clatter up the narrow canyon walls
He ducks his head his fellows yell
The canyon is an echo cauldron now
I hear a rumble, then again
When boulders fall and crush the strangers dead
Manojos de su dinero (Bunches of your money) share
The Man My Friend and I
Viejos juntos (Old ones together)

Like this:

I did not kill the boy. But I did eat him. As I stripped the pungent flesh from his arm I saw the rifle and I growled but I did not stop devouring. That night I slept on his bones and I had my first dream of you.

I dreamt that I was the boy. I was close to your face. I could smell your hot skin and your salty blood. I could not stand it any longer and I lunged at your lips. But I awoke whimpering. I clashed my teeth and I growled.

In the morning I was drawn by the scent of the boy’s tears down the mountain. I came to a stream and I smelled where the boy had sat. I smelled where the rifle had been laid and I growled. I too sat and I saw my reflection in the trembling water my face black and my eyes yellow. Beneath the reflection of my eyes was a gold ring lying on the pebbles.

The tops of the trees swayed and moaned in the wind. I laid myself down and I had my second dream of you. I was again the boy and I saw you through a cottage window being devoured by another boy. I saw my reflection and it was the face of a deer whose throat I had torn out. I awoke howling.

By nightfall I arrived at the stench of the village. I felt like I could not breathe so I dug furiously at the earth to release the fertile decay and I laid myself in the pit to rest. I had my third dream of you. I was the boy howling and shaking the rifle at the moon and I could smell you in the wind but you were not there.

I was awakened by twigs snapping and soil crunching. My hair turned electric and my lips fled my teeth. Then I smelled you. You called out.

“I know you are out there. I am sorry. I am sorry. Come back to me!”

I rose up glaring in front of you and you screamed in horror. But when you gazed into my eyes you suddenly stopped screaming. You knew. I was he.